Main menu

Search form

Title

Only a few months ago, the Amarr/Minmatar warzone was the hottest place for small gang PVP action anywhere in New Eden. The fighting has cooled off considerably since then, as the realities of attempting to foster a PVP environment with economic PVE-based conflict drivers sink in. However, despite being overshadowed by screenshots of billion ISK cash outs, Factional Warfare is still a place where fighting happens and "gudfites" can be found. In fact, one alliance in the Amarr faction has recently started a PVP narrative of their own.

Looking to draw out fights, Agony Unleashed (a newcomer to the Factional Warfare scene) anchored a small POS in Kourmonen, a key Minmatar staging system. The POS was quickly reinforced by a bored Minmatar US TZ and the stage was set for a week long series of triage carrier escalations that would ultimately end in the Minmatar losing Kourmonen.

Agony's POS was scheduled to come out of reinforced during EU prime time so the following day they formed up an armor battleship fleet with Guardian support against the Minmatar POS bash fleet. As Agony arrived at the POS, the Minmatar reshipped into armor BS of their own, complete with triage support. Unfortunately, this skirmish ended in an anti-climactic stalemate when neither side brought enough DPS or EWAR to break through reps. Unable to escalate further and facing incoming Minmatar reinforcements, Agony chose to disengage.

A couple days later, Agony found a small POS in Kamela belonging to Late Night Alliance and began shooting it, in an attempt to provoke a round 2. The strategy worked and after some minor cat and mouse, Agony found themselves in Lamaa, facing an Iron Oxide. led Minmatar fleet with both sides in primarily armor BS backed by a single triage Archon.

Learning from their previous fight, Agony brought in neuting battleships for enemy triage carriers and bolstered their numbers with support from friendly militia corps. Both sides engaged and as the Minmatar Archon died, their FC jumped in a Nidhoggur and Thanatos in an unsuccessful attempt to save it. On the other hand, Agony's reps had no problem holding and their DPS cut down the two additional carriers and resulting in a solid welp of the Minmatar fleet.

Following the second fight, both sides put POSes belonging to one another into reinforced which would ultimately lead to a third and final triage backed armor BS brawl. Agony's POS came out of reinforced first so they formed up to defend it, but the Minmatar chose to stay docked. A few hours later, the Minmatar finally formed up with a roughly 50 man gang to defend their POS as it came out of reinforced. However, by this point Agony's numbers had dwindled significantly and they were now greatly outnumbered.

Refusing to let numbers stop them, they called in a favour from Pure Madness., a group Agony had befriended while living in Syndicate, who brought down BS and Guardians. Sadly, the extra numbers were not enough. Overwhelming ECM and neuts managed to break Agony's triage and Guardians forcing them to retreat.

Meanwhile, Kourmonen had slowly been plexed up to 90% contested by the Amarr militia. Seeing the opportunity to flip the system, Agony switched gears and for the next 48 hours maintained a solid presence in Kourmonen, engaging in what can only be described as pure small gang PVP bliss. PVP fleets ran around the clock, plexing and engaging in a neverending series of small skirmishes against the Minmatar, until two days later Kourmonen stood at 98% contested as downtime hit. Following downtime, the Minmatar had given up on defending and Agony was able to easily plex the system to vulnerable and flip the Ihub, thus retaking Kourmonen.

With Agony Unleashed only getting better at Factional Warfare and #YOLOCOLO's deployment to Egghelende, the Amarr warzone should start heating up again as the Winter expansion approaches.